SearchLinks

Frequently Asked Questions

What does SearchLinks look like?

There's no short answer to that question, but we try to make SearchLinks look as much like a part of your site as possible. We have two basic types of SearchLinks units.

Editorial Units are designed for placements where "native ads" normally go. Consisting of images, headlines and descriptive text, editorial units are engaging to users but integrate well.

Keyword Units are blocks of highly targeted linked keywords. We have several formats that work well, but we typically aim to create units that look and feel navigational.

You can check out this page for an example of both Editorial and Keyword Units.

How do I make money with SearchLinks?

SearchLinks makes money for publishers by connecting interested users to hundreds of thousands of search advertisers. We do this by displaying highly relevant hyperlinked search terms - SearchLinks - to users when they are engaged with content.

What kind of CPM can I make?

The CPM that publishers earn is dependent upon several factors - the commercial value of the content page, the count and placement of the units and the type and quality of the traffic publishers receive to their pages all contribute to how much an individual publisher can make. In general we've found that we significantly out monetize other ad solutions on pages which have targeted commercial content on them.

Because we allow publishers to set CPM thresholds, we'll only serve when we're beating your targets, so you will make more money by adding SearchLinks to your site.

How do I set a CPM threshold?

It's simple. You let us know what your CPM threshold is for a given placement and we'll optimize based on that threshold. If our system sees pages which are performing lower than your target, they will automatically be suppressed, allowing you to serve other solutions in our place.

In general you'll find that the actual CPM you earn from SearchLinks is significantly higher than your threshold. This is because many pages will significantly outperform your target.

Can I backfill SearchLinks with my own ad tags?

SearchLinks supports many 3rd party ad tags. We backfill on a per ad unit basis, so if we are placing multiple SearchLinks units on your pages, you can provide us with backfill tags for each placement.

Here’s how it works:

Once you’ve placed your SearchLinks tag(s), send us the backfill tags that you’d like for each placement so that we can load them into our system.

When you are ready to go live, you can remove or comment out your 3rd party tags.

Then we’ll activate your SearchLinks tags.

On any page that SearchLinks don’t show, your third party tags will display as before.

How do I monitor performance?

Your account manager will provide you with account credentials to login to your partner dashboard at http://dashboard.searchlinks.com. From your dashboard you'll be able to monitor your impressions, CPM and revenue for all of your SearchLinks tags and units.

If I'm unsatisfied with the performance, can I turn it off?

Absolutely. You can turn off any SearchLinks tag or unit at any point in time. What typically makes more sense for publishers is to set minimum CPM thresholds for a given SearchLinks tag or unit. By doing that, publishers essentially guarantee that they are earning incremental revenue.

How is SearchLinks served?

SearchLinks uses CDN hosted java script to serve highly targeted monetization for content publishers. For a given publisher implementation we create one or more ad tags to define where SearchLinks units appear on publisher pages or in popular ad servers such as DFP.

Once the ad tag code is placed, SearchLinks shows based on our target and the rules that we've defined with our publishers. These rules include what SearchLinks looks like, when and where to show and minimum CPM thresholds in order to show SearchLinks. You are free to show SearchLinks in place of or adjacent to all of your other monetization solutions.

Can I control where SearchLinks shows?

For specific placement of ad units, you may create and send us the empty <divs> where you want the ad units to go on your page. This will help us place the ads exactly where you want them to show on your site.